Does Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have an email problem? In a court filing on Monday, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman accused Tillerson of failing to disclose a hidden, secondary email account he used while CEO of Exxon Mobil to discuss the impact of climate change and other important matters. Tillerson, whose middle name is Wayne, apparently used the email alias “Wayne Tracker” from 2008 to 2015 to discuss the impact of climate change on the company’s business, but Exxon failed to disclose the emails as part of an investigation into whether the company misled investors about the financial risks posed by climate change.
From Bloomberg:
Schneiderman made the claim in a letter Monday to Justice Barry Ostrager in New York state court in Manhattan, accusing Exxon of failing to turn over all relevant documents required by a court order. The filing comes in a protracted legal dispute in which Exxon seeks to derail probes by New York and Massachusetts into whether the company misled investors for years about the possible impact of climate change on its business… “Despite the company’s incidental production of approximately 60 documents bearing the ‘Wayne Tracker’ email address, neither Exxon nor its counsel have ever disclosed that this separate email account was a vehicle for Mr. Tillerson’s relevant communications at Exxon, and no documents appear to have been collected from this email account,” Schneiderman said. The existence of the secondary email account was discovered by Schneiderman’s team while reviewing other Exxon documents.
“It is unclear at this stage what impact the investigations may have on Exxon, if any,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “Mr. Schneiderman has broad powers to investigate corporations under New York state’s Martin Act, including civil and criminal claims against companies for securities violations.”
